Friedman Middle School honors vets in students’ families for Memorial Day

On the one hand there was 89-year-old Master Sgt. Ramo Riva of Taunton. A U.S. Army Eighth Air Force vet who enlisted at age 17, Riva was responsible during World War II for the maintenance of a dozen B-24 bombers.

On the one hand there was 89-year-old Master Sgt. Ramo Riva of Taunton. A U.S. Army Eighth Air Force vet who enlisted at age 17, Riva was responsible during World War II for the maintenance of a dozen B-24 bombers.

He also headed up a team of more than two dozen aircraft mechanics.

Riva recalled the German bombing of his air base and a nearby British town as “a devastating time.”

After the ceremony in the school’s auditorium had concluded, fifth-grader Dylan Nichols, Riva’s great-nephew, explained what Memorial Day means to him.

“I think it’s very special. It should be celebrated the entire year and not just one day,” Nichols, 11, said.

He also pointed out that one of his uncles, John Savage, is currently in the Army and has served tours in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

Nichols was one of a sizeable group of youngsters selected to escort this year’s three invited guests into and out of the auditorium. They were chosen because all have relatives currently serving in a military branch.

Twelve-year-old Elizabeth Shangraw, another fifth-grader, said Memorial Day is an opportunity to say thank you to her father Chad, who has served in Iraq and is still a member of the U.S. Army.

Tara Vieira, a Friedman seventh-grader, said Memorial Day “is kind of a big thing for my family.”

Vieira, 14, says she and her half-brother John McCoy share July 20 as their birthday. McCoy, she said, is now in Afghanistan.

“I’m really worried,” she said.

Mayor Thomas Hoye Jr., during the ceremony, noted that attendance at Taunton’s annual Memorial Day parade has unfortunately fallen off in recent years.

Vieira, however, said she’ll not only be at the parade, she’ll be in it.

In order to allow the entire student body to witness and participate in the morning’s memorial event, the school held two back-to-back ceremonies.

Taunton City Councilor and Vietnam vet Donald Cleary said he never had any intention of trying to be a war hero before his draft notice came in the mail in 1966.

“I was just out of college and had my first job as a teacher. But then I get a letter from Uncle Sam (taking) three years out of my life,” Cleary said.

He said his first and natural reaction was “Why me?”

“But after a while you ask, ‘Why not me?’” the 68-year-old former Taunton school superintendent said.

Cleary saw action in Vietnam (always referred to then as the Vietnam Conflict) during that war’s fiercest fighting in terms of U.S. involvement.

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By the time he came back home to Taunton he’d attained the rank of Lt. Colonel and had been awarded a Purple Heart, Bronze Star and Combat Infantryman Badge.

And although he refers to Vietnam as “the only war we lost,” Cleary said that in no way diminishes the sacrifice, courage and commitment of those soldiers who served during that tumultuous period in American history.

Cleary told the students, some of whom were so attentive they seem transfixed, to be appreciative of the fact that men and women in uniform today have volunteered, and were not drafted, for military service.

He also said it means a lot to veterans and active military when one takes a moment to say, “Thank you for your service.”

“You’d be surprised to know how much that means,” he said.

Cleary also reminded the crowd that Taunton, in particular, has a proud history of military sacrifice and is one of the first municipalities in the country to have established a Global War on Terrorism memorial, in honor of the half-dozen area men who have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Richard Davenport, an aerospace science teacher at Taunton High, who previously taught at an Air Force academy and has worked on missile technology for the Pentagon, also spoke.

Davenport, who is involved the high school’s Jr. ROTC detachment, said the American flag endures as a symbol of “valor, purity and justice.”

He also recalled that his father not only was one of a group of paratroopers who the day before D-Day dropped behind enemy lines, but that he also later took part in the bloody Battle of the Bulge.